Goodbye to Rochester

So we went up to Rochester expecting to cool off. We even brought some long sleeves and light jackets against real possibility of a few chilly days. Imagine our consternation when we spent the first week there in the grips of a heat wave such as only visits that area every few years: in the mid 90s for almost a week straight!

Stop laughing down there, Southerners. :-)

Anyway, it finally did get back down to the usual mid 80s and we even had a chilly few days before we left. Check it out: our kids wearing jackets in July!

Oh, yeah, and 3T pants still fall off of Miles. What of it?

Thursday was the day we'd fixed on to leave. On Wednesday, we had another couple hours at Eeyaya's (Leah's) to say goodbye. It was not easy.

Miles & Adele bid a fond farewell to the trampoline their cousins.

I had to muster up a goodbye to my very dear other half. If you don't know this already, Leah and I were born five weeks apart and we spent our first 18 years living 40 minutes away from one another and scheming continuously for more more more opportunities to be together. We have been sisters in every important way, and I've felt so very blessed to have had her with me to face so many milestones. Most recently: our third decade! We had to begin it states apart but this year we celebrated together.

Because we've both been so very mobile over the past few years, we've hardly been able to see each other above a couple of holidays each year since we both graduated and married. This summer was an enormously welcome opportunity. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm longing to buy up a house down the street from her.

Where we come from, we're a legend.

The goodbyes continued. Adele said goodbye to her best friend, Kirby the dog,

The kids said goodbye to one another...

I'm not sure why I love this video so much. It's maybe just that the sound of kids clamoring down those wooden stairs are such a sweet sensory memory of this trip.

Meanwhile in Penfield, the kids said a loving goodbye to their Grandpa Jim.

They are seriously going to miss the spoiling they got! All they had to do was approach him with a book or ask for attention and they got it.

The night before we left, Miles got a special big kid treat: a trip in Grandpa Jim's vintage Mustang to see a baseball game downtown! (The Rochester Redwings, a minor league team, if you care about that sort of thing. Also, they won :-) ) I got to stay home and receive a visit from my old and very dear Allison and Sarah, previously shown at the Highland Bowl at Twelfth Night.  We were enjoying our girls' night far too much for pictures.

Anyway, Miles and this car! Miles says it is a racecar. He loves the racket it makes!

Adele was pretty crazy about it herself!

They wanted to stay and climb the car and their Grandpa for much longer, but we had a date with their other Grandparents in Maryland. So we piled in and said goodbye as best we could. It sounded a lot like, "We'll see you soon!"

It's been a long time since I've been home long enough to feel I lived there again. I got to catch up with a variety of old friends, I got to see places I haven't seen in years. I got to reprogram the radio stations I liked into the car, buy groceries at Wegman's, eat Pontillo's pizza, and brush up my accent. :-)
I kind of got a bit more centered and at home with myself, along the way. One gets tired of constantly having to say, well, I'm not from here. I didn't grow up here. I'm new here. Where is the ___? You pronounce that HOW again?

I know our society is such that we really can't expect to stay put. And I know that's not really desirable to a lot of people. I get it. But all this transience can get kind of disorienting and tiring.

I'm happy to say I'm feeling extremely oriented and rested these days.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Finally, two days before we'd planned to leave, an opportunity was found for Leah and me to make a pilgrimage to one of the more sacred shrines of our childhood: the camp on Lake Ontario.

The lake was warm (well, relatively!) and the weather angelic. We ate our picnic lunch on the grass and wasted no further time in getting into the water!

It was a bit strenuous, trying to correctively channel the enthusiasm of our two preschoolers and two toddlers into non-life-threatening activities. But we managed. Everyone threw rocks, and no one was hit by one; everyone got in the water (even the ever-reluctant Adele!) and no one risked drowning; everyone climbed all over the rocks like goats and not one little body fell.

Not even this one, try though he might!

It was pretty much a gorgeous experience for everyone. We even taught them how to use rocks to write messages on other, flatter rocks.

Had the tinies cooperated and napped, my legendary partner here and I might have gotten more gab in. But we still found a way, in between episodes.

There was a dirt party, a golf cart expedition (courtesy of Grandpa King) and lots of wave chasing and stone throwing.

Leah even found more driftwood for her collection!

Alas, too soon we had to pile everyone into the cars to head home to Linden, where Jon was making dinner!

We did manage to sneak in a quick trip to Brown's Berry Farm, a place I grew up visiting and remember very fondly, but to which Leah had never been once! So I had the pleasure of introducing all my companions to this lovely farm experience.

The kids were happy even with the part that was available to them after 5pm. We didn't have time for the wonders of Barnyard Adventure this day, anyway. Our time will come!

Please note that this goat (below) is using a pulley to take hold of his own food. They grow goat geniuses up here in WNYS. 

Eventually Adele woke up and joined us, and we got to get into the thick of the berry bushes. I took no pictures for some reason, but we picked a WHOLE lot of absolutely luscious blueberries and ate most of them right there in the patch! Leah bought a small box and fortunately Miles forgot about them, because Abby ate them all on the way home! a decision that, while digestively questionable, certainly kept her busy on the drive home.

This day ended up being one of my favorites of the summer, for the pure sensuousness of it. Next time, it has been decided, we are going ot bring the menfolk, and suitcases, and we are going to stay a while.

Classic Rochester

We had an afternoon in town when Dad was working and Leah & Matthew were out of town. So we took a little stroll through my city to see some landmarks:

Rochester is the home of several major corporations, including Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, and Kodak. This is where we get the "image capital of the world" boast, by the way.

I just love the Democrat & Chronicle (local paper) building.

They apparently filmed a Spiderman sequel here recently? Some Rochesterian fill me in in the comments.

 Famous statue of Mercury, famously depicted as freezing his (naked) tush off on wintertime D&C front pages. 

Kodak. Don't let it fool you; sadly, it is a shell of its former glory.

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure High Falls isn't going to decline and die with the increasingly global economy.

High Falls is where you can see some remnants of the flour mills that used to be so important to the economy. This is where we get the "flour city" moniker. Below, the kids learned about what a millstone does.

Something about "these little ones" and a "large millstone around his neck..." but this is a bit dark, I think.

And there it is! High Falls. The largest of three.

The Genesee flows northward into Lake Ontario, with its source somewhere in Pennsylvania. I know you wanted to know that.

For a while, we just gazed.

One of several delicious local beers.

It's not the flashiest, or the coolest, but I love my city.

Below are three pictures from inside a Wegman's which I had to snap because I felt I needed to make a point about Wegman's, to the uninitiated. I felt so stupid taking them that they turned out rather blurry, but I'm telling you, your supermarket should be afraid.

Deli area.

The East Ave Wegman's has a sit-down Italian restaurant. It's adorable.

It was so. good. to. be. home. Did I mention that?

Let's hope this isn't practice for a future career, though.